High-efficient electromagnetic wave absorption of coral-like Co/CoO/RGO hybrid aerogels with good hydrophobic and thermal insulation properties

Addressing the growing issue of electromagnetic radiation calls for urgent exploration of effective electromagnetic wave absorbers. Herein, a series of coral-like Co/CoO nanoparticles/reduced graphene oxide (Co/CoO/RGO) hybrid aerogels were synthesized via a freeze drying-thermal reduction strategy. Their advantages involving porous interconnected framework, abundant heterogeneous interfaces, and integration of dielectric/magnetic units could bring multiple loss modes. By manipulating the Co(CO₃)_0.5(OH)·0.11H₂O (CCOH) addition and reduction temperature, the electromagnetic parameters could be tuned, ultimately resulting in optimal absorption capability with maximal reflection loss of –32.4 dB and effective bandwidth of 4.2 GHz. More importantly, excepting the high electromagnetic wave loss, Co/CoO/RGO hybrid aerogels also exhibit good hydrophobicity and thermal insulation properties, making them suitable for application in harsh environment. Besides, the special structure and multiple components lead to multiple heterointerfaces in aerogels, the resultant interface polarization is deemed to contribute to electromagnetic wave loss. Here, Density Functional Theory (DFT) simulation based on first-principles is adopted to verify the contribution of interface polarization from the theoretical level. According to the simulation results, the electron-occupied states near the Fermi level are significantly different among the different phases comprising the heterointerfaces, and there is a noticeable accumulation of charge at these interfaces, successfully affirming the interface polarization behavior at different interfaces.